


Ghosts and Whispers

by NocturneSylph



Category: Gotham (TV)
Genre: Alliance Through Necessity, Coda: S01E06 Spirit of the Goat, Crime, Drama, F/M, Friendship (sort of), Jim's Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea, Mob Dealings, Psychopaths are People, Sideways Talking, work-in-progress
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-10-30
Updated: 2014-10-30
Packaged: 2018-02-23 05:59:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 897
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2536781
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NocturneSylph/pseuds/NocturneSylph
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After Oswald's... well timed entrance to the GCPD, Jim is forced to make a choice. Abandon everything he cares about and fight his way back, or give the man up and lose himself.</p><p>There wasn't much of an option, really.</p><p>Now Jim just has to learn to hide himself amongst the bloodied spiderwebs long enough to survive Maroni, Falcone, the GCPD, and the Penguin.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ghosts and Whispers

From the moment Oswald announced to the entire station that he was, in fact, alive and not at all murdered by Jim, everything moved in waves. The silence that followed Oswald’s giggling seemed to drag for hours, but it all sped up when he heard Harvey.

“You son of a bitch.”

Jim was half uncuffed by Montoya before, ignoring the screams of traitor by his partner, he ran over to shield Oswald. He threw out his arms, feeling somewhat safer with the man he’d gone such lengths to protect behind him, even though nearly every officer was now pointing their weapons at him instead.

“Jim,” Harvey said as the place fell silent. He rubbed his wrists when the cuffs fell away. “What the hell are you doing?”

“I know that Falcone has a lot of you in his pocket,” Jim said, ignoring him as he looked around the station. Only the Captain, Nygma and the MCU agents looked anything but murderous. He couldn’t face his partner. “And that for some of you, it’s bribery; others, blackmail. But I also know that you didn’t sign up for this – killing people and betraying what you believed in just because a power hungry lunatic says so.”

“Jim,” Harvey repeated, his voice taking a strained edge that Jim hadn’t ever heard from him before. “Don’t do this.”

“James,” Oswald said quietly, grabbing his wrist. The remaining cuff bit into his skin. “It’s alright.”

“No,” Jim said, moving his hand behind him. He rested it on Oswald’s stomach, pushing him back a step. “It isn’t alright that you are all willing to hold a gun on another officer and a man who you have no proof to link him to any crime.”

He felt Oswald’s chest against his back, and his grip tighten. “Just close your eyes,” he said softly, breath against Jim’s ear. “And run.”

Something metal bounced past him, stopping in the middle of the room. Jim recognized it a second before the detonation, spinning to protect the two of them as the flash grenade blinded everyone else. Oswald’s hand never left his wrist, and Jim let himself get pulled outside, the collective scream of his colleagues ringing in his ears and his vision tinted a pale pink.

“Where the hell did you get that?” Jim asked, keeping them running as fast as Oswald could. He could hear yelling from the building as he turned them to an alley, no longer shocked and pained but severely pissed off.

“I have my connections, James.” He could almost hear the coy smirk on the other man’s face, and he just shook his head, trying to focus past the uneven steps and jangling of metal to anyone that may be following them. They passed a couple of dumpsters as they went through another alley, a few of the older homeless the mayor hadn’t been able to get arrested hanging around. Jim ignored them, and the group didn’t look up. People being hunted down by some shadowy entity or corrupt police was far too common an occurrence in Gotham to care about anymore.

“Why did you go in there?”

It was obvious to him that he should have killed Oswald when he was told to, but he knew that he couldn’t have. He refused to go against everything he believed in like that, and he refused to be under Falcone’s thumb.

“You had been arrested,” Oswald said, breath coming in shorter bursts. Jim had no idea where the hell they could go, or when they could stop. Falcone and the GCPD knew every part of the city. They were running a maze. “I couldn’t let that happen.”

“Why?”

Oswald tugged his wrist below the cuff, and Jim let him pull him to the right without thought. If the man had wanted him dead right now, he would have just left him. He knew the others would have been more than willing to shut him up.

“You… have never lied to me,” Oswald said. His cheeks were slightly flushed, but his visible fatigue and the awkwardness of his gait didn’t slow him down as much as Jim had thought it would. “And I have never lied to you. That sort of honesty… you don’t generally come across it in a city like this.”

“How do you know I haven’t lied to you?” Jim asked. Oswald stopped them at the mouth of an alley, and Jim let him have a break to catch his breath. It caught a couple of times as he rubbed at his legs. “How do you know I haven’t betrayed you?”

“I have no reason to believe you have.”

Jim sighed, looking up and down the mostly deserted street. He knew that Oswald had something up his sleeve, something he was going to regret fully, but at the moment, it would have to wait. “I could be leading you to Falcone or Mooney.”

“I trust you,” Oswald said calmly. He stepped past him, straightening his suit. Jim realized that they were near the restaurant that he managed. Oswald looked at him with a slight smile, holding out a hand. “Come with me, James, and I’ll protect you. Like you have for me.”

“I’m going to regret this,” Jim said with another sigh, taking the offered hand.

Oswald chuckled, shaking his head. “Don’t worry, my friend. I will make sure that you don’t.”

**Author's Note:**

> Any and all criticisms are more than welcome (this is a new fandom for me, and I welcome all opinions and advice). Apologies for the unbeteadness of this all.


End file.
